Originally Posted by
Confus
How many flights are cancelled will depend on who exactly walks out and when. It’s entirely possible to fly on some routes without interacting with a single staff member - OLCI plus SSBD plus self-boarding gate. Have a few managers to sort out the issues and things could move as normal. (Obviously they won’t in practice, and delays will be rife, but I doubt BA would just throw in the towel and cancel everything. It’s not as if the staff concerned are as critical as pilots, for example.)
Not really because they would never allow a completely unmanned gate area because anyone could just jump over the barriers and board without self-scanning. Plus a human still needs to verify each BP against the passport to check it is indeed that person boarding. Or the inverse whereby someone goes through the boarding process but then does not board the aircraft and lingers on the jetty or walks down the steps at the gate onto the apron area.
An aircraft also could not be dispatched either without the rampers as all sorts of procedures and checklists need to be followed by humans once the doors are closed, ie, retracting the airbridge, aircraft checks and tug drivers in pushing the aircraft back from the gate area.